The Pretence

by Ramsey Campbell

  "Where did you look?"

  "In the catalogues online." That had to be the answer, even if he couldn't recall doing so. How badly was his lack of sleep affecting him? At least he was able to say "It does sound rather familiar."

  "That's what you thought." Perhaps this was a reproach, but the man added "I think I've remembered some words."

  "It's a song, you mean."

  "Didn't you say?"

  Slater had no idea, and his forgetfulness had started to make him feel lacking. "What words are those?" he said, trying not to sound nervous.

  "It starts off with the town where I was born."

  "That should help." The man's accent prompted Slater to add "I'd say Liverpool."

  "Like you by the sound of it. You're best ending up where you came from."

  "Some of us have never left." That wasn't true visiting his mother was enough to give it the lie—and Slater felt as if he was trying too hard to manage his memories. "Are you thinking of the Beatles?" he said.

  "You've got to if you think of Liverpool."

  "Yes, but do you have their song in mind? The one that starts the way you said."

  All at once he was afraid of being asked for the title. How could he have forgotten it, even if he specialised in other kinds of music? Perhaps the man knew it, because he said "I'm not thinking of that, no."

  It sounded unnecessarily reminiscent of a guessing game. "Is it more recent?" Slater said. "One of Dylan's, could it be?"

  "Isn't he the poet?"

  "Not the one from Wales, the singer who took his name."

  "You shouldn't do that." Slater felt no less bewildered than accused, even once his customer said "Take a name. Don't they say never take one in vain?"

  "That's just God."

  "It ought to be the rest of us as well. Take it away and you won't be able to get to yourself. You know yourself you can't look anything up without a name."

  "So, Dylan the singer," Slater said in a bid not to think about any of that. "Was it his song?"

  "Doesn't sound like him."

  "Then I'm guessing it's the one he based his song on. Barbara," Slater said and then "Barbara."

  "Barbara Barbara. Don't know that one."

  "Not Barbara Barbara," Slater said and tried to laugh, despite feeling like an echo of an echo. "Barbara. Barbara..." With an effort that strained not just his mind but the whole of him he succeeded in recalling "Barbara Allen."

  "Hey," the man said in surprise if not indignation, "that's my name."

  Slater was on the edge of laughter now, unless it was hysteria. "What is?"

  "It's not going to be Barbara, is it? Not Barbara Barbara either. Have a go at Alan."

  Perhaps that was how he spelled it, whichever of his names it might be. "As you see, mine's Paul," Slater said.

  The customer peered at his badge—indeed, scrutinised it so closely that Slater was reminded of immigration or the police. "If you say so," the man eventually said.

  Slater glanced down to see that the badge was inverted, turned up towards him as though to remind him of his name. Even once Slater reversed the badge the customer didn't look especially convinced. "Can you sing it for me?" the man said.

  For a disoriented moment Slater thought he was being asked to perform his own name, a notion that seemed capable of driving the ballad out of his head. With an effort he succeeded in retrieving a pair of lines: "He turned his face unto the wall, and death was drawing nigh him..." He would rather not sing that just now if ever, and he struggled to recapture the words that the man had more or less told him. He took a breath that he couldn't hear for the hovering music, and sang "In something town where I was born..."

  "How's that again?"

  Slater did his best to raise his voice while he repeated the line, but couldn't prevent the rhythm from fitting itself to the symphony, and the melody fared not much better. The customer had him rehearse it once more, and this time he joined in. As Slater saw his colleagues duck towards their work, quite possibly to shut out the duet, the man said "That's something like."

  "Shall I see if I can find it for you?"

  "If you want."

  The song wasn't on any of the albums by the Neaps. It wasn't among the Only Folk compilations, and it didn't seem to have been recorded by Maurice and His Men. Slater searched through all the likely discs and then the increasingly unlikely ones before he had to tell his customer "I'm afraid we don't have it in Folk just now."

  "Doesn't have to be."

  Presumably he meant he would accept a composer's interpretation, and Slater moved to the classical racks. Volkswagen came to mind until the initials yielded Vaughan Williams, who didn't seem to have gone anywhere near the ballad. Britain was a thought—Britten, to be more precise—but he hadn't set it either. Holst had stayed clear along with Grainger, and there was no trace of a version by Beethoven, whose rustic dance was leaving very little room in Slater's head for any other musical thoughts. At last he said "It looks as if I'll have to order it for you."

  "If it won't be too much trouble for nothing."

  "It's none at all. We're here for you. Without you we wouldn't exist," Slater said and typed his name to log onto the computer at Information. The screen flickered for an instant, unless his vision did, before responding. Invalid, it declared.

  The customer glanced at the screen and then gazed at Slater. "Aren't you well?"

  "I'm fine. It's the system that isn't."

  "I wouldn't say that too loud if I were you."

  "I don't care who hears." This was no more defensive than his remark about the computer. "Slater," he hissed as he put in the name again, just as unsuccessfully. He was about to page the manager, though it made him feel worse than incompetent, when a thought saved him. He typed Paul and was acknowledged at once, which would have reassured him if he weren't so aware of having forgotten the routine. "I'm in," he said. "What sort of version would you like?"

  "Of you? The one you are will do, I'd say."

  However plainly this was a joke, Slater didn't find it appropriate. "Of the music," he said.

  Since Slater hadn't even hinted at a grin, his customer's face stayed blank. "Whichever you think."

  "Traditional?" When the man raised no objection Slater brought up the title, but the onscreen repetitions were so numerous that he had to search for a reason to single one out. "The Final Family," his instincts eventually prompted him to say. "I believe they're supposed to have caught the spirit."

  "Let's have them, then."

  Slater patched the details into an online order form before he had to say "And your name again..."

  "Allen."

  "Mr Allen," Slater said, almost sure he'd heard that spelling, and in the absence of any contradiction he entered it on the form. "And your postcode."

  He had to ask to hear it again, which didn't lessen how it made him feel. "Sorry," he said. "It was just a surprise. It's the same as mine."

  "You'll be looking for me at home."

  Slater couldn't help wishing he were there right now—him, not the customer. "What number's yours?" he said.

  "Don't tell me that's yours too."

  Slater suppressed his unease, since the idea was absurd. The mumbled number was a teen, but certainly not his. "Close," he said, though he wasn't sure how much. "You must be just round a corner."

  "You'll be seeing me again before you know it."

  "It ought to be here soon," Slater said, as that was all the customer could mean, and printed out the information. "If you could bring that with you it would be helpful."

  "It'll help you remember, you mean." As he took the flimsy slip the man said "Thank you for your time, Mr Player."

  "So long as you care about names, this is me," Slater said and extended his badge on its lead.

  He might have been making a bid for admission at an invisible threshold. The man didn't even glance at the badge before he turned away, murmuring "I'll leave you alone then, Mr Later."

  "Slater," Slater p
rotested but had no idea who heard him. Everyone had their backs to him, and he couldn't tell how much of his voice the discreetly boisterous music had absorbed. "I'll be in the office if anyone needs me," he said rather louder than he'd proclaimed his name, and made for the plaque on the wall.

  The office was the second room along the concrete passage. It was a windowless bunker much like the staffroom but with desks, each of which was occupied by a computer, their screens as blank as oblivion. As Slater sat in front of his the unadorned white walls reminded him of the sky; it felt like being surrounded by slabs of solidified cloud, or else the walls seemed less substantial than they ought to. He would leave once he'd checked for any calls; he didn't even know why he was so anxious to do it—but as soon as he switched on the mobile it clanked and trembled in his hand. Melanie had tried to reach him.

  At least she had left him a message, and he fumbled for the key. A woman told him he had one new message and gave him instructions on how to retrieve it, which he couldn't do until he had finished being told. He'd forgotten to wait for the anonymous artificial voice to finish before he poked the appropriate key, and had to go through the ritual again. Once he'd jabbed the key a second time he heard a whisper of static not too distinguishable from silence, and then it produced Melanie's voice—the memory of her call. "Don't worry if you're there," she said. "Well, of course you are. Just checking all is as it should be. The children tried and so I said I would. We'll all be fine till we're back together."

  What did she mean about the children? He thumbed the button to recall her number and pressed the phone against his car, and heard silence as blank as he imagined the unseen sky must be. He didn't know how long he waited to hear an unnecessarily remote bell, which seemed to be summoning more of the silence as it echoed itself. Then the bell faltered like a musician who had missed a note, and Melanie said "Hello?"

  It shouldn't be a question. She ought to be seeing his name. Did her voice sound artificial? Perhaps it was her answering message, which he couldn't recall ever having heard. Before he managed to respond or even take a breath she said "Who's calling me?"

  "It's me. It's only me."

  "Not only at all, unless you're saying you're the only thing that matters."

  "I'd never say that. There are you and the children for a start."

  "Matters to them and to me. You ought to know I meant that."

  "I'm sure other people do as well. Matter, I'm saying." The sense of artificiality hadn't left him; the conversation felt like rummaging in his mind. "Why couldn't you see me?" he said.

  "What do you mean. Paul?"

  That sounded genuine enough—her unease did. "Just now," he said. "When I rang. You couldn't see my name."

  "I wasn't looking. I wanted to hear."

  Had he aggravated her unease? He still had to ask "Why did you call? What was wrong?"

  "Nothing is now."

  "That's a relief, but what were you saying was the matter with the children?"

  She was certainly uneasier now. "What did I say?"

  "That they'd tried to get in touch with me, I thought. There's no trace on my phone."

  "That explains it, then." Her relief seemed to let her add "Mind you, there are always traces. If there weren't I couldn't do my job."

  She was talking about computers, but he was anxious to learn "Why did they want me?"

  "Why wouldn't they?"

  "I'm asking why they tried to call."

  "I really couldn't tell you. I expect it can wait till tonight if I let them know I've spoken to you." She sounded eager to say "We'll pick them up after their rehearsal, shall we? I should be finished by then."

  "I can get them if you like."

  "No need to be apart any longer than we have to be." As if to leave the thought behind she said without a pause "How's your day shaping up?"

  "I don't know how long I was dealing with a customer. One of our neighbours or not far from it. A Mr Allen, I believe."

  "He does sound a bit familiar, but let's concentrate on us."

  At least their conversation had lent her voice some substance, and she sounded close enough to be in the room. "And our work," Slater said.

  "That's us as well, and the children are."

  "I should think we ought to let them be themselves." Just in time Slater grasped that whatever was behind Melanie's words, she wouldn't want to hear that kind of comment, and so he gave her a silence to prompt her to speak. "I can't wait to see them, can you?" she said.

  "We'd better get back to work so we're in time."

  "I expect so." As Slater made to say something other than farewell she said "See them performing, I meant."

  "That as well," Slater said and was anxious for the day to be done. The shop felt like a stage in his return to the family, and he seemed to need to keep them in his mind. By the end of the workday he could scarcely bring to mind how he'd spent it—checking stock, removing items from the shelves to send back where they'd come from, finding music for a customer, serving at the tills, which emitted notes like rudimentary attempts to join in the melodies overhead if not to diminish them or take their place—and he left all that behind as he made for his car.

  Beneath the white sheet of the sky the dormant vehicles might have been forgetting their colours. Perhaps the sunless light was muffling his perceptions, because he had to use the key fob to locate the Astra. He heard an electronic sound that seemed to be transformed into a flare of light, but he had to rouse the car again, having lost it once more in the maze of empty metal. He fell into his seat and grabbed a water bottle to suck at the plastic nipple, feeling vulnerable and isolated. It must show how incomplete he was without his family, and he twisted the key to bring the car back to life.

  The traffic lights at the exit from the retail park looked blanched by the sky. Although the main road was anything but busy, the lights took their time about releasing him. Such traffic as there was stayed on the main road when he turned away between the faded shops. He couldn't help looking for the police at the graveyard, but except for trees there were only stones like extrusions of the rock beneath the grass.

  He saw St Dunstan's before he was expecting to, though he couldn't recall when he'd last approached it from this direction. At first the white blocks of the school consisted mostly of a mass of stripes, the railings of the schoolyard. The bars moved lethargically apart as he drove closer, as if the view beyond them was gradually taking shape—the buildings practically indistinguishable from the sky, their windows blank as cataracts, the empty yard. No, there was a glimpse of green, and then the gaps between the bars let him see Amy and Tom. Melanie was with them, and he should have noticed her car on a side street ahead, especially since no houses were in the way. "Now we're all together again," Amy cried as he opened the passenger door.

  "We'll always be," said Tom.

  Slater would have expected her to give that a big sister's look, but for a change she seemed not to feel superior. "Who's coming home with me?" he said.

  The children's faces wavered, and he could have thought Melanie seemed taken aback too. "We all are," she said.

  "No, I mean who's travelling with me." When even this appeared to fall short Slater said "In my car."

  "It can be the boys again." Melanie said.

  Tom apparently understood this before his father did, and climbed in the Astra. Amy and her mother hurried to the Viva, which swerved at speed out of the side road as if Melanie couldn't wait to see the rest of the family in her mirror. As the Astra came up behind her she moved off so deliberately that Slater assumed she wanted him to stay in the reflection. He grew aware that Tom was gazing at him. "Well, Tom," he said and for a disconcerting moment didn't know how to continue. "Are you prepared?"

  The boy's gaze flickered, surely not with nervousness. "What for, dad?"

  "What else could it be? Your concert, of course."

  "I think we are." Even more gravely Tom added "I hope."

  "No need for that, I'm certain." Whe
n the boy looked less than reassured Slater said "I believe in you and Amy."

  "And mummy."

  "She does too."

  Tom's gaze retreated, leaving his eyes blank, so that Slater wondered if he'd misunderstood the boy somehow. He could have thought he was forgetting how to talk to his family. Was this another indication that he needed to catch up on his sleep? Even that prospect made him uneasy, and he concentrated on following the Viva, meeting Melanie's eyes in the mirror whenever she looked for him. He was barely aware of having a passenger, and had to keep glancing at Tom, who was intent on the other car.

  As he followed Melanie into St Peter Street the trees closed in. Was even the vegetation confused by the unemphatic light? He could have thought all the buds were taking their leaves back, having concluded that spring had proved to be an illusion. The pallid sky appeared to have settled into every window of the house, and until he left the car he couldn't see a single room. Melanie opened the front door, revealing the hall and the photographs climbing towards the sky. Once Slater crossed the threshold he could see the photographs weren't blank. As he shut out the inhibited trees and the unforthcoming sky he said "We'll have dinner when you two have done your homework."

  "We haven't got any," Tom said.

  He looked oddly lost, and Amy did until she said "They let us off because of rehearsals."

  Slater was disconcerted to feel that the domestic routine had been undermined. How regulated did he need their life to be? What did he think would happen otherwise? Before he could ponder this, if indeed he wanted to, Melanie said "Come and read while we get dinner ready then."

  He had the odd notion that she meant the children to read aloud to them. He wouldn't have encouraged reading at the table—surely that used to be regarded as rude—but at least it meant the family was all together. As he made a salad to accompany the lasagne Melanie had taken from the refrigerator he saw that the children's books must be old favourites, revisited so often that they'd shed their presumably disintegrating jackets. He was doing his best to identify them—it felt like a memory exercise—when Melanie said "If you're ready we are."